Bleu blanc rouge
Some snaps from our time in France. I wanted to share these last month but thought I'd wait awhile for the November 13th shock to subside. A little. Paris was a dream of course, and still very much is. No matter how much time I spend there I feel like there's just so many more reasons to come back.
This is my first time there with a year's worth of French language classes under my belt and I felt like I've discovered yet another side to France; what started as a personal endeavour to learn more about W's background and culture and wanting to be able to communicate with his family there has now become a small obsession. The immersion has improved my French dramatically over three weeks and I'm now hatching my next plan to get us back to Paris.
Despite W's protest that Paris isn't really like Amelie, it did feel like it most of the time. We checked into the cutest apartment in Montmartre, bought fresh baguettes every morning and took the Metro anywhere we couldn't walk to. The buskers were aplenty and provided a soundtrack for our flânerie. We hiked up to Sacré Cour one morning at 6am (best thing to do when jet-lagged), Google-mapped our way to a multitude of cafes, bistros and restaurants and met W's cousin Julia for dinner and drinks and she later hooked us up with some tickets to La Légende du roi Arthur, my very first introduction to French musicals. The theme song was stuck in my head for the entire duration of the trip, too. We spent our days wandering the streets and getting lost in the alleyways, searching for the next great pâtisserie (there were many) and our nights in exploring our neighbourhood smoking pretend cigarettes and looking in at posh real estate windows, dreaming of our next apartment. Are all trips to Paris like this? I don't know. But it felt nice to be a part of it even for a short while.
I was extremely well fed by W's family - from Paris to Caen to Tours. Especially in Caen. W's family prepared what I can only describe as massive feasts for us, and while I never shy away from a marathon session, it's not often that lunch rolls into dinner and dinner is a light 3-course salad meal with starters and dessert. I learned a few things about myself that day: that I may very well have found my threshold of food consumption in one sitting, there is no such thing as bad French cheese, and that people from Normandy don't mess about with their food at all. Or the rest of the country for that matter. It's all so good. We didn't have a bad meal. I packed on 3kgs during my first week and broke some personal records - don't even ask me about Italy.
Oh, and the Père Lachaise cemetary is such a cool place to spend an afternoon. Highly recommend it. Also, it's really hard to find good coffee, from an Australian point of view that is.
I've been neglecting this blog a little as I try to catch up with my inbox (at work). Fortunately the end of 2016 is near and Summer is here so you'll be hearing from me a bit more often. Meanwhile, in the matter of life updates, I have one to share. W and I are getting married! I know this comes as a surprise to no one, not us for sure, but we're really excited all the same.. and dying to get to the honeymoon bit.. suggestions welcome :)